


Fragments

by Rosaliss



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Death, Established Relationship, Family Issues, Father-Son Relationship, Flashbacks, Gen, Grantaire-centric, Homophobia, I got the whole package so please be careful, M/M, Racism, Slice of Life, Trans Enjolras, Transphobia, enjolras is a good boyfriend, this is about Grantaire's family but Enjolras is there too!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 01:16:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17971709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosaliss/pseuds/Rosaliss
Summary: The funeral invitation was on the desk. Grantaire could see it out of the corner of his eye from where he was standing in front of the mirror of the hotel room. He tried to ignore it, to focus on his reflection, but the invitation was there, burning on his cornea and in his mind.-Grantaire's father dies.





	Fragments

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote it in the tags, but one can never be too careful: warnings for homophobia, transphobia, and racism. I wish it was all for the angst of the fic but nope, people are actually like this.
> 
> While writing, I listened to "Carrie & Lowell" by Sufjan Stevens on repeat. It's one of the best albums I've ever listened to in my life, and it's also the right soundtrack for this story. Give it a listen if you haven't already.

Grantaire is five, and he’s sick. He wakes up one morning sweating, his head aching and his body sore, feeling overall dizzy. His mother places a hand on his burning forehead and announces that he has the flu and is going to stay home from school.

Grantaire doesn’t like being sick. Staying at home isn’t fun when you have the flu, you’re too sick to play and have to stay in bed all day. Plus, he really likes going to kindergarten. Right now his friends are playing together in the big courtyard, exploring every corner, looking for hidden spots, running after each other, collecting the fallen leaves painted orange by the autumn. Maybe they’re playing hide and sick, Grantaire’s favourite game. He’s good at it, too. He’s a loud child, but when he wants he’s able to hide and be perfectly still and silent for as much as he likes.

Instead, he has to spend the day under the covers, feeling at the same time hot and cold. For the first part of the day, he doesn’t eat, he just drinks a single sip of tea every hour, then every half hour. Grantaire doesn’t even like tea that much.

When the evening arrives, he doesn’t feel better. The fever has gotten worse─his mother says that it’s normal, that temperature is always higher in the evening, but Grantaire doesn’t care what’s normal and what’s not, he just hates being sick. He wants to stop feeling like this.

His father comes home late. His mother says he had an important meeting and is tired now, so Grantaire can’t bother him. Grantaire ignores her and jumps in his father’s arms as soon as he enters the door.

“Hey, champ!” his father greets him. “A little bird told me that you’re not well today.”

“I have the flu!” Grantaire says, somewhat proudly, as if being sick is an achievement. Then he remembers that he doesn’t like it and adds, “It sucks.”

“We don’t say that kind of things in this house. But yes, having the flu isn’t nice.”

His mother appears behind her husband. “Try not to infect your father.”

“Nah, my antibodies are strong.”

“Your anti-what?” asks Grantaire.

“My antibodies. You know what they are?”

Grantaire shakes his head.

“They’re these tiny, little things inside our body that help us fight the viruses that make us ill.”

“Inside of us?” Grantaire says, and he looks horrified by the thought. He is horrified by the thought.

“Yes, but you don’t have to worry, they’re good. Like friends.”

“Oh, all right!” He’s already relieved. “Hey, Dad!”

“What is it, son?”

“Would you read me a story?”

“Ah, now, what did I tell you?” his mother says. “Dad is tired tonight.”

“Please, Dad!” He makes his best puppy eyes at his father. He knows he can’t resist them. Not even his mother can.

“All right, all right!” his father says. He finally puts Grantaire down and gestures towards Grantaire’s bedroom. “Lead the way, little man.”

Grantaire lets out a delighted squeak and runs to his room. He hears his mother huff, but he knows she’s not actually angry. She loves listening to her husband reading stories as much as Grantaire does; she always sits on the bed next to him and strokes Grantaire’s hair until he falls asleep.

Grantaire slips back under the covers. He already feels better.

His parents are just behind him. His mother sits in her usual spot, and Grantaire notices that he was right, she’s not angry─she’s smiling. His father walks up to Grantaire’s small library and looks at the books for a moment, humming to himself, before picking Grantaire’s favourite.

“Here we go,” he says, sitting down next to his wife. “ _Jack and the dragon._ ”

Grantaire watches him as he opens the book, clears his throat and starts reading. “Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, there lived a boy named Jack. Jack was a curious child, and a very brave one, too.”

Grantaire closes his eyes. His father’s voice is deep and soft, soothing, a voice that cradles. He pronounces every word slowly, carefully, as if he’s tasting them. As a lullaby.

“So Jack said: ‘I will go to the Golden Cave and ask the dragon to help us.’ The other villagers laughed at him, but Jack─”

His mother accompanies every word with a gentle caress on Grantaire’s hair or arm.

Grantaire is more exhausted than he realized. He still feels dizzy. He opens his eyes and tries to keep them open, but it’s too difficult, he’s too tired, his father’s voice is too calming. When he falls asleep Jack hasn’t met the dragon yet.

 

 

The funeral invitation was on the desk. Grantaire could see it out of the corner of his eye from where he was standing in front of the mirror of the hotel room. He tried to ignore it, to focus on his reflection, but the invitation was there, burning on his cornea and in his mind. Why had they sent him the invitation, anyway?

Focus on the tie. The knot that he couldn’t tie. But it was easy, he’d done it so many times, so many times.

It really was easy. Wear a black suit, go to the church, listen to other people in a black suit talk about false memories, shake hands with them, say “thank you” when they say “my condolences”, smile at them, but not to much, because it’s a fucking funeral. Go to the cemetery, watch them bury the coffin. Go home. He’d done it before. He’d done it for his grandma, his beloved grandma. Why should it be different with his father?

He swore under his breath. He couldn’t tie the knot.

“Grantaire?” Enjolras called from the bed where he was sitting, ready to go in his own black suit.

“I can’t tie it,” he said, taking off the piece of clothing with a frustrated groan.

“Let me.”

Enjolras took the tie from Grantaire’s hands and put it back around his neck.

It crossed Grantaire’s mind that they were switching their roles, that usually it was him who helped Enjolras with his tie before he left for work in the morning. He couldn’t fully grasp the idea, though, couldn’t focus on that either. Why was everything so weird?

“Why is everything so weird?”

Enjolras looked at him from under his eyelashes. He didn’t say anything, just pecked him on the lips and took a step back, leaving Grantaire to give a last tug to finish the knot.

 

 

Grantaire is nine, and he’s sitting at the dining table with a slice of pizza on his plate. His mother is sitting in front of him, tapping her fingers on the edge of the table.

“Don’t eat,” she tells him. “It’s rude to start without Dad.”

Grantaire retreats the hand he had hovering over the dish and puts it under his tight with a pout. “And when is he going to come downstairs?”

“In a moment, honey. Just wait.”

“But it’s going to get cold!”

“Stop.”

There’s a sense of finality in the way she pronounces the word, so he huffs and leans back in his chair. He thinks it’s unfair. When he’s late for dinner, his parents always start without him. Sometimes, when his mother is in a bad mood, she threatens to send him to bed without dinner. She never does, but that’s not the point. The point is that his father never gets that treatment, he can do whatever he wants, can be late all he wants, and he never pays for it. They just wait for him, and the food gets cold. The pizza is going to get cold. It’s unfair.

The TV is on. It’s a program for adults, some TV show that his mother follows and that Grantaire finds extremely boring, but he glances at the screen nonetheless, just so he can distract himself from the pizza in front of him. Two men with questionable fashion taste are arguing about something that Grantaire doesn’t catch and doesn’t really care about. His mother seems to be very engrossed in their conversation. Grantaire can only think about his pizza.

Upstairs, the door of his father’s studio opens and closes. Grantaire sits upright at the sound, thinking, ‘Finally.’ The footsteps get closer.

On the screen, the two men from before have stopped talking and have gotten closer to each other. One of them leans towards the other, face only a few inches away. Grantaire thinks that they’re about to kiss, as grown-ups seem to like to do─why, he just doesn’t understand─but he’ll never know if he’s right because his mother curses under her breath and turns the TV off.

“Why did you do that?” Grantaire asks. He’s never seen his mother turn the TV off during one of her shows.

“Dad doesn’t like that kind of people,” she says, glancing at the kitchen’s doorway. His father’s footsteps are even closer now.

“Why?” Grantaire asks, but his father chooses that moment to appear, and he is silenced by a menacing look from his mother. He grimaces but says nothing.

“Why what?” asks his father.

His mother’s voice is sweeter when she speaks. “Nothing, dear. Sit down, your son is impatient to eat.”

His father laughs and ruffles his son’s hair. “Who am I to keep a boy from his dinner? Go ahead, buddy.”

Grantaire grins and takes a huge bite of his pizza. It’s still warm. The men on TV are already forgotten.

He doesn’t know that his mother’s words will echo in his mind in the following years and mess everything up.

 

 

When the tie knot was done, Grantaire felt a pressure on his chest. Was it the knot? Was it too tight? He couldn’t breathe. He could, but he couldn’t. They had to go, but he couldn’t.

He hadn’t panicked when his sister had called him with the news, and he hadn’t panicked in the days leading to the funeral. He hadn’t felt anything, to be honest. Apathy, someone could call it, but Grantaire preferred the term calm, even though he knew that the former was more correct. Calm wasn’t too bad. Enjolras had taken care of the hotel, the trip from Paris to Provence, the suits, everything, while Grantaire had just stayed calm. Feeling nothing. He knew that day was coming, anyway.

He was panicking, now.

He was panicking, and Enjolras was holding his hand and asking him to breathe, just breathe.

“I need a drink,” Grantaire said. “Why isn’t there a mini-fridge in this damn room? Why aren’t two-stars hotels equipped with mini-fridges?”

There were no mini-fridges in two-stars hotels. Enjolras wouldn’t have let him drink anyway, and Grantaire wouldn’t have wanted to upset him. Or Mathilde. Or his friends. Or his mother. Had his father ever cared?

He crouched down and curled up. Enjolras sat down on the floor with him, still holding his hand.

“After everything he did to me.”

“I know, I know.”

“After everything he did to you. To us!”

“He didn’t do anything to us. He couldn’t.”

“But what did _I_ do?”

 

 

Grantaire is twelve, and he’s spending the day in the city with his parents and his little sister. It’s January, and the weather is really cold, so his mother has forced him to wear layers on layers of clothes, completed with a scratchy, handmade scarf and a wool hat of a bright, awful lime green. He hopes he won’t meet any of his schoolmates in the city. Feeling ridiculous is one thing, being publicly embarrassed another.

Mathilde is wearing a bulky ski jacket that doesn’t look comfortable at all and the fluffiest and pinkiest hat the world has ever seen, but, contrary to her brother, she doesn’t seem to mind and runs around laughing and shrieking with the energy that belongs to a two-year-old, while her mother follows her with an expression of both despair and amusement.

They walk around the city, chat, laugh, and have a good time. They buy hot chocolate and stop at a park to drink it. Well, Grantaire and his parents drink it; Mathilde is too busy running after the pigeons to care about hot chocolate. She gets tired, eventually, so she spends the last part of their trip in her stroller, head dangling on the side.

They arrive at a square that has an old train wagon displayed in the middle. The square is quite small, so the wagon is taking up the majority of the space. A small crowd is gathered around it.

Grantaire’s been to this square other times. The wagon is new.

“What’s that?” he asks.

His father glances up at it. “It’s an instalment. You know that the 27th is Holocaust Remembrance Day, right?”

“Sure.”

“Is your school organizing something?”

“We’re going to read a few extracts from _The Diary of Anne Frank_.”

His father nods. “That’s good. You should talk about it, it’s important. All the people that died, it’s unbelievable.”

Grantaire doesn’t think it’s unbelievable. He’s been on this planet for only twelve years, but he already knows how humans are. Cruel, selfish, careless. Always have been, always will be.

“Although,” his father adds, with a casual tone, “I have to say that some people did deserve to be put on those trains. Like those damn Gypsies.”

Grantaire freezes. His face grows hot in spite of the cold air. For a moment, he believes he’s misunderstood, he must have. But he hasn’t, he knows. His father has a hard look on his face, the one he wears when he’s angry.

Grantaire doesn’t say anything. He glances over his shoulder, at his mother, who’s taking care of Mathilde, now awake. Then he looks back at the wagon.

“Let’s go,” his father says, and Grantaire does.

 

 

“Hey, hey, listen to me. You did nothing wrong, okay?”

“Bullshit. I’ve never done anything right in my whole life.”

“No, that is bullshit. Grantaire, listen to me,” Enjolras tilted Grantaire’s chin up to look him in the eyes. “You’re a great person. I know I’ve been the first one to tell you otherwise, years ago, and I’m sorry for what I did, but listen to me now, please. You’re a good person. You don’t deserve all the shit that happened to you. I know you think you do, but it’s not true.”

Grantaire buried his head in Enjolras’s chest and closed his eyes at the warm sensation of arms wrapping around him, the soft touch of a hand in his hair, the sweet feeling of closeness.

What do you do when you spend your teenage years having anxiety at dinner because he might say something against you? What do you do when you fear that every dinner could be the last time you’re allowed to sit with your family? What do you do when he says that they should shoot immigrants at sea and gay and trans people shouldn’t be on TV and what about the children? What do you do when he says those things? What do you do when he says that he doesn’t want to see you anymore? When you can’t even go back to your childhood home? What do you do when the man who raised you calls the man you love a sick deviant and you a perv for loving him? And what do you do when, for a moment, just a moment, you think that he’s right, that you’re wrong, you’re sick, you’re against nature?

What do you do when you neglect your own mother because you don’t want to have any contacts whatsoever with your father? What do you do when you fail to visit your family for a whole year? What do you do when you drink too much and disappear for a day, making your boyfriend and your friends worried sick? What do you do when they tell you that your father is ill and dying? What do you do if even then you can’t bring yourself to visit nearly enough? What do you do when he’s nice? What do you do when you love him and hate yourself?

“It would have been easier to just hate him.”

Enjolras stiffened but continued to pet his hair without a word. Grantaire knew that he despised his father: he’d represented everything Enjolras fought against, he’d been the type of man that Enjolras wanted to eradicate from society and that Grantaire knew was impossible to correct and erase, the ignorant, self-absorbed, careless type. On top of that, he had also made Grantaire miserable. Of course, the feeling of hatred was mutual, and Grantaire’s father had never liked Enjolras: after all, he was the trans man his son was dating.

But Enjolras wasn’t an asshole, so he just kept cuddling Grantaire and said nothing.

 

 

Grantaire is sixteen and there’s a blackout. It’s evening, they’ve just finished their dinner. When the lights go out, Mathilde bursts into tears and Grantaire holds her to his chest, whispering comforting words in her ear. He knows that she’s afraid of the dark; he was too when he was her age. Sometimes he still is.

It’s a problem of the entire building, so his father goes outside to talk to some neighbours, and, when he comes back, he tells them that they’ll just have to wait for someone to come and deal with it.

“The landlady’s already working on it,” he says. “We’ll be fine.”

“What do we do?” his mother asks.

“What do you want us to do?” his father says back. “We’ll make the best out of this situation.”

Grantaire frowns. “What you mean?”

“Well,” his father says. “First of all, we need some light.”

They end up lighting some candles─a lot of candles, all over the flat. His mother collects them, so there are enough of them to light every corner. It’s beautiful: even Mathilde stops sobbing and looks around with wide eyes. She starts wandering through the living room as soon as Grantaire lets go of her, giggling. “They’re so beautiful,” she says softly, with a reverent tone, and Grantaire smiles.

“Son!” his father calls from behind him. Grantaire turns around to find his father standing in the hallway with a crooked smile and Grantaire’s guitar in his hand. “What do you say? Want to play us something?”

“Oh, please!” Mathilde cries out, trotting towards him.

His mother claps her hands. “What a wonderful idea! That would really set the mood.”

Grantaire takes the guitar from his father with a sheepish expression. “All right,” he says. He goes and sits on the couch, while his family gathers around him. “I can do a song.”

“Ladies and gentlemen!” his father begins, pretending to have a microphone in his hand. “Welcome to the Grantaires’s flat! Tonight we have the luck to have with us the amazing, talented, great─”

“Dad!” Grantaire protests. “I can still change my mind.”

“Oh, play!” Mathilde says. “Play, play, play!”

His parents join his sister’s chant. “Play, play, play!”

Grantaire lets out an annoyed “fine!” but he’s laughing. He finds the most comfortable position on the couch and then plays the first chords. Mathilde voices her delight with a gleeful squeal when she recognizes the song and hums along to it.

Grantaire sings the first verses alone, shyly at the beginning, then more and more confident as the song goes on. His father starts singing at the choir. His voice might be pleasant to hear when he speaks, but he’s not a singer. He can’t get a note right, but he has the passion, and Grantaire assumes that that’s what really matters. They smile at each other in the dim light.

Soon enough the four of them are all singing, his father off-key, his sister getting many words wrong, his mother with a perfect, soft voice, and Grantaire feeling safe and happy, even if it’s just for a brief moment.

 

 

When they arrived at Grantaire’s old house, he was more collected. It wasn’t the calm (apathy?) he’d felt in the previous days, but he wasn’t panicking anymore.

Mathilde was waiting for them at the gate. She waved her hand and managed to smile, actually smile. Enjolras let go of Grantaire’s hand to hug her.

“It’s so good to see you,” she said.

“Wish it was for a better reason. I’ve missed you. You should come visit us in Paris more often.”

“I’ll hold you up to that, you know?”

Enjolras pulled away and smiled. “I hope so.”

They both turned to Grantaire, who was standing a few steps behind Enjolras. Mathilde gave him a smile, but there was a strange light in her eyes. Grantaire knew what it was, knew that that look was the only way his sister was able to express what she felt, knew that words couldn’t truly describe it. It didn’t matter, though, because he understood. They didn’t say anything as they hugged tightly. It wasn’t necessary, and it wasn’t possible.

He took a moment to admire her when they pulled away. Mathilde was one of the most important people in Grantaire’s life and he loved her very much. She was smart, witty, and sweet. She had the same dark, curly hair of her brother, but that was pretty much all they had in common, according to Grantaire. He’d always thought that she was the best one out of the two. He used to say that she’d inherited all the qualities of their family and he all the flaws but had stopped after the terrifying experience of being yelled at by Mathilde and Enjolras at the same time.

“Mum’s inside,” Mathilde said, and a chill run down Grantaire’s spine. Facing Mathilde was easy. His mother... Grantaire dreaded that moment. Entering the house, too. That was why he’d chosen to stay at a hotel.

He followed Mathilde inside nonetheless, through the garden and up the stairs. The flat’s door had been left ajar. He stopped in front of it to take a deep breath. Enjolras slipped a hand in his and squeezed lightly as Mathilde pushed the door open. Grantaire stepped inside.

“Hi, Mum.”

There she was, sitting on the couch, all in black, with a side braid that resembled the one Mathilde was wearing. Her dark hair had white streaks, her eyes were vague. Lost. She looked so much older than the last time Grantaire had seen her, and much more exhausted. She was still composed, though.

She got up to meet them, the shadow of a smile on her lips.

“You’re here, finally,” she said softly.

Grantaire’s stomach twisted with guilt.

 

 

Grantaire is twenty-two, and he decides that he’s had enough. He’s having Christmas dinner at his grandparents’ house, which would be a lovely way to spend the holidays if only his father and uncle hadn’t chosen to make everything bad by talking shit about gay people.

He doesn’t even know how it starts. He’s eating the potatoes his grandma made and talking with Mathilde about her annoying history teacher, when he hears his father’s voice: “I’m just saying, this country is going to hell. Last year we got gay marriage. Next year what will it be? We’ll get married to animals?”

That’s when the Christmas glee leaves Grantaire. He finds himself with a bumping heart, a sense of oppression in his chest, and a weird dizziness. Suddenly, it’s hard to breathe.

Mathilde says something to him, but he doesn’t hear it. He’s listening to his uncle reply with a “cheers to that” to the comment while his father goes on rambling about the downfall of France.

The temptation of just ignoring them is strong. His father and uncle are not men that change their minds; they’re stubborn and proud and not great listeners. Once something’s in their head, it’s hard to convince them that they’re wrong. Impossible, even, because they don’t admit their mistakes. Grantaire knows it, he’s lived with them his whole life, and he’s never contradicted them. What’s the point of doing so? What difference could it make?

And maybe that’s his epiphany, the realization that he’s never stood up to his father, not once in his life, about these things. Things that matter to him. He thinks about all the times his father has said terrible things and he has said absolutely nothing. He thinks about his friends, about all the times they’ve been brave and stood up for their beliefs, even when it meant getting in trouble, a thing that happens often with Les Amis. He thinks about Enjolras, about all his speeches on the matter of oppression and discrimination. About the fire he has in his eyes. About the smile he gave him, _Grantaire_ , just before he left the city for the holidays, an unexpected, real, warm smile. He thinks about the world, that is going to hell, his father is right, but not for the reasons he pointed out. And he thinks about himself.

“Excuse me,” Grantaire says, loud enough to be heard by everyone. “Could you not?”

His father looks at him, puzzled. “What?”

“Could you stop saying those things about gay marriage? It’s not a catastrophe. It’s a damn good thing, actually.”

“What, are you defending those fucking queers now?” He laughs, but it’s a dangerous laugh. He’s irritated, Grantaire can see it.

“Well, yes. Is it so hard for you to understand that we’re talking about people, and people who have done nothing, literally nothing, wrong? I know you were raised a certain way, but you should use your brain and think. Plus, what difference does it make to you if gay people can get married? Giving rights to minorities─which deserve those rights, by the way─doesn’t take anything away from you.”

It’s funny, it sounds like one of those speeches he hears at Les Amis meeting.

“It’s about values,” his father says.

“No. It’s about ignorance. Oh, and by the way, I’m one of those fucking queers.”

The room falls completely silent. All the attention is catalysed on him, but he’s barely aware of it. He knows, in the back of his mind, that all his relatives─his uncle and aunt, his grandparents, his mother─are watching him, holding their breaths, surely in shock, maybe hating him, shaking their heads; he just can’t focus on them.

His father is the first one to speak. “Mathilde, go to the other room.”

Mathilde doesn’t move.

“I’ve said, _go_!” His tone is angrier now, so much that Mathilde winces and obeys, after a last worried glare to her brother.

“What did you just say?”

Grantaire lifts up his chin. “You heard me.”

“This isn’t funny, boy. I’m warning you.” Again, the danger in his voice.

Grantaire doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t lower his eyes. “No,” he says, and it comes out less calmly that he wanted it to be, “now you listen to me. I’m fucking tired of hearing you talk shit. I’ve had enough. And I’m tired of remaining silent, every time. You’re wrong, Dad. Someone had to let you know.”

“Get out.” His voice is low, now. It doesn’t sound irritated anymore. It doesn’t sound like anything.

“This isn’t your house.”

“Get out.”

Grantaire is suddenly aware of his family’s eyes fixed on him. While he goes away, the thought that Enjolras would be proud of him for what he just did crosses his mind and makes him laugh. Now, that is an unusual scenario.

 

 

The funeral was a blur. A lot of people, a lot of black, a lot of whispered condolences. Shaking hands, saying “thank you, thank you”. His mother’s tears, his sister’s head on his shoulder, his boyfriend’s hand in his. Prayers to a god he didn’t believe in. A blur, until someone asked him to go to the pulpit and say a few words about his father.

 

 

Grantaire is twenty-six, and he’s visiting his father at the hospital. When he arrives, his father is laying on his bed and his mother is sitting on a chair next to the bed. The TV is on─an old man with white hair is talking with a young woman─and his mother has a book open on her lap, but they aren’t paying attention to either of them, too busy chatting. About what, Grantaire doesn’t know.

His mother smiles at him when she sees him. His father scowls.

“How are you?” Grantaire asks.

“What do you think?”

Grantaire lets out a bitter laugh. “Right.” Something heavy on his chest.

“It’s a good day,” his mother says. “Perfect day for a visit. How was the travel?”

“Fine, it was fine, thank you. Is Mathilde coming?”

“Not today. She has some school project she has to finish. But you’ll see her tonight.”

“Ah, great.”

Everything’s white, so, so white. That’s one thing Grantaire can’t stand about hospitals, the lack of colours. It makes the place look professional and hygienic, but it’s too depressing. And too blindly. It’s like you’re already dead.

“Let’s go to the common room, shall we?” his father says after a little while. “I’m tired of this room.”

They go to the visiting room, which has a few tables and a couple of couches and is as white as the rest of the hospital. There’s a total of seven people in it: a family of four that is visiting a woman in her fifties and an old couple that’s looking out the window and talking, heads close.

Grantaire and his parents sit down at one table. His father asks him if he wants to play cards and he nods. His mother still has the book open in front of her. Still, she’s not reading.

They used to play cards together when he was little, usually with his grandma. His father taught him. Grantaire’s always been very good at it, but never as good as his grandma. After she died, he stopped playing for a few months. He wonders if he’ll stop doing it after his father’s death, too. Cold thoughts.

“So, how are things in Paris?”

“Good, thank you. I got a new commission last Monday.”

“Ah, good.”

“Mathilde’s always talking about Paris. She had a lot of fun last year,” his mother says.

“I’m glad. She’s welcome to come again this year, whenever she wants. Enj would be happy to see her too. Maybe during her summer break? For as long as she likes.”

His father wrinkles his nose. “Maybe it’s better if she stays here. With how things are right now.”

 _Right._ “Right.”

“But you could come here for a while!” There’s hope in his mother’s eyes.

“Ah, I don’t know. I don’t think the gallery would give me all those days in a row. We got a few big exhibitions coming up.”

“Oh. All right,” she says.

“Draw a card,” his father says.

 

 

How many of those people did Grantaire know? His family, of course, including some relatives that he hadn’t seen in a while─a long while. His father’s old friends. A few neighbours, the baker, even the parents of some long lost friend of Grantaire’s, traces of a past life. How many of those people had really known his father? Had the baker ever learnt something more than his favourite football team? Who was the old woman weeping in the third row? How many of them knew what had happened between his father and him?

Grantaire cleared his throat as he shifted his gaze from the crowd in front of him to the Bible on the bookrest and the piece of paper where he’d written a few points. There were so many things about his father. The pensive wrinkle between his eyebrows, the jolly smile, the deep voice. The paleness of his face in his last months. The time Grantaire was sick and he’d read him his favourite story even though he was tired. The time he’d made Grantaire play the guitar during a blackout. The trips to the city. That particular trip to the city, in January. The time Grantaire had first learnt about his father’s homophobia, how it affected him through his teenage years, and the time he’d come out to him. The time they had played cards at the hospital.

Grantaire wasn’t used to being speechless. And yet, there he was.

He lifted his eyes again to look at his mother, Mathilde, and Enjolras. They all looked back at him. His mother was still crying silently, but Mathilde’s gaze was firm and reassuring, and Enjolras mouthed: “I believe in you.” I believe in you like you’ve always believed in me.

“Good morning. Before I begin, I want to thank you all for coming here today.” He cleared his voice again. “The first things that come to mind when one thinks about my father are his friendliness and his joviality. This is why there are so many people here today. He had a smile for everyone. And I think many of you remember how he used to smack people on the shoulder as a greeting. A cheerful greeting, but a rather painful one, too.”

They laughed. Empty words, but they laughed.

The rest of the speech was like that: more empty words, more set phrases, more silly jokes that for some reason made people giggle. Happy memories that made Grantaire’s heart ache a little bit. He felt numb. He mentioned only good things; maybe true, but incomplete.

“Thank you all again for coming here to remember my father. He would have been happy to know his life touched so many others.” 

 

 

Grantaire is twenty-seven, and he’s burying his father. He watches the priest say the last prayers as the men from the funeral parlour lower the coffin into the hole. When his turn comes, he throws a handful of soil on it. 

The attendants, including his mother and Mathilde, go away one after the other until Grantaire and Enjolras are the only ones left in the cemetery.

“I really meant what I said before,” Enjolras says then. They’re standing a few meters away from the grave. “You have no fault.”

“He never tried. But I didn’t try either.”

“Once again, I disagree.”

“He knew how to be a prick. Maybe it’s because now he won’t have the chance to change. That I’m upset, I mean.”

“Maybe. Do you think he would have changed?”

“Not really, no.”

Grantaire shivers. He doesn’t know if it’s because of the weather. It’s a bit cold, but not too much, definitely not enough to make him shiver. Normally, at least. But today isn’t a normal day.

It’s sunny. Blue sky, chatty birds, white clouds. Two old women are changing the withered flowers on a grave not far from his father’s.

Then something weird happens: he feels slightly better. He’ll never fully get over everything that happened, and he’ll have to accept it. There’s a sense of lightness in the acknowledgement. The living bury the dead.

Grantaire takes Enjolras’s hand for the thousandth time that day. “Let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> All right, honest talk: I'm the type of person that yells, "Cut toxic people out of your life!", and I'm also the type of person that... well, cuts toxic people out. Usually. Some people are ignorant and willing to learn and change. Other people are ignorant and too stubborn to change. With this last category, you usually just get hurt. But the truth is that it's not that easy to let go of or ignore them and what they say and do. The purpose of this fic was to convey that feeling. The purpose of this fic was my personal catharsis, if I have to be completely honest. It's probably too personal (before you get the wrong impression, know that my father is alive and well and a really great guy) and I'm a bit scared, mainly of people getting angry. So, if you want to yell at me for whatever reason, feel free to do so but... kindly? Yell kindly? Is that a thing? Whatever. Also, maybe we should talk about the role of Grantaire in the fandom and the function of fanfictions in general.


End file.
